On Saturday 21st February
2015, Squib correspondent, Kunle Smith interviewed Adesina Ogunlana Esq., the
national co-ordinator for Lawyers4Change on the emergence and activities of the
group. Please read on.
SQUIB: MAY WE MEET YOU SIR?
OGUNLANA: My name is Adesina Ogunlana. I am a legal
practitioner and was from 2012 – 2014 the 1st Vice Chairman Nigerian Bar
Association Ikeja Branch. Presently I am the National Co-ordinator Lawyers4Change
SQUIB: SIR WHAT IS LAWYERS4CHANGE?
OGUNLANA: L4C is an association of legal practitioners who are
concerned about the current political situation in our country. We identify
participating individuals in the coming elections, whom we consider credible, who
can add value to governance and then support them to win and after they have
won monitor their activities in office so as to encourage their performance.
L4C is specially identifying with Prof. Yemi Osinbajo SAN who is the vice
presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC). The professor is
well known to us as a decent, knowledgeable, industrious system builder and we
witnessed his great achievements in the office of Attorney General and
Commissioner of Justice, Lagos State between 1999 and 2007 and we believe he
can deliver even at a higher level. That is why we are supporting him. He is
our specific person of interest and because we are supporting him we are
supporting the Buhari presidential ticket of cause we admire General Buhari too
but we know Osinbajo better. The Professor is a gem. However we are not APC members. We are just an
interest group. Our group is not an organ of the APC, so while we are political,
we are not into party politics.
SQUIB: HOW DID LAWYERS4CHANGE COME INTO
EXISTENCE?
OGUNLANA: The group actually started as a reaction to a
particular development in the body politic of the country. You know the APC
became the major opposition party in Nigeria upon the merger of the Congress
for Progressive Change and the Action Congress of Nigeria. When this merger
happened, the new born baby proved to be a behemoth. It was very large indeed
and it became more formidable because for one reason or the other, big wigs who
were disgruntled or dissatisfied with the ruling party the Peoples Democratic
Party, started leaving that party for the APC. When the APC later held her
primaries in December 2014, General Muhammadu Buhari won the presidential
ticket and some days later the news came that a fairly unlikely choice in the person
of Professor Yemi Osinbajo SAN had been picked as running mate to General
Muhammadu Buhari. When we learnt of the selection of Professor Yemi Osinbajo as
the vice presidential candidate of the APC we became elated. The first thing I
did was to put a call across to Prof who is very well known to me.
I
have known him now for upwards 23 years now, I first knew him as a teacher, he
taught me Law of evidence in the year 1992 at the Lagos State University (LASU).
I was the captain of the class and interacted with him a little more than most
other class members because of my position. He struck me then as exceptionally
cerebral, highly organized, gentle, accommodating, polished and humble. So
humble indeed that he never called me Sina for many years but always 'Mr.Ogunlana' to the extent some of his staff in his Chambers thought I was a friend
to him!
So
when I put a call across to him and it was to pull his legs, I said something
like, “you have to go out now oga and buy more agbadas because you will be
needing them now” and he just laughed. Then I teased him further saying “but
oga why were you wearing that child looks on the podium when your hands was
raised up on the podium as the running mate to General Buhari”? Then he laughed
again and said “Sina you know I am not used to that kind of a thing but went on
to say something that touched me. He said “Shina I need your help, this is a
very big opportunity for those of us who consider ourselves serious minded to work
for the betterment of this country and do our best”. That really touched me
because I know that he was stepping out of his comfort zone, he was stepping out
of his safety zone. As we all know, politics in our country is played roughly,
crudely, even violently. I remember that M.K.O. Abiola also stepped out of his
comfort zone to play leadership politics in Nigeria but perished along the way.
Professor Yemi Osinbajo is a successful and highly respected legal
practitioner. He is comfortable, he may not be fabulously rich like the
Dangotes, the Otedolas and the Adenugas but he is very far away from poverty.
I
later put calls across to two of my friends Dare Akande and Dave Ajetomobi who
are my longtime political associates in the Bar and discussed with them on the
necessity for us and all those who believe in Professor Osinbajo to rally round
him. My friends agreed with me and after three brainstorming sessions, we went
to meet Professor Yemi Osinbajo and presented to him a position paper. The professor
liked it.
After
the meeting we invited three other lawyers to join us at the formative stage.
They are Isa Mohammed Buhari, SOK Shillings and Yinka Farounbi. The six of us
brainstormed more and together we agreed to have a meeting of the association
of our contemplation. We invited 30 people to a meeting. The meeting held on January
2nd, 2015. Out of the 30 people invited, 26 people turned up and the rest is
history.
SQUIB: WHAT ACHIEVEMENTS HAS L4C RECORDED
SO FAR?
OGUNLANA: That may not be for me to say. I would rather want to
comment on our efforts, it is for people to say what we have achieved. Our
efforts are targeted at achieving our goal and our goal is to promote the
Buhari/Osinbajo Presidential ticket in the public. Our method is to enlighten
our people via direct social interactions while we work with the press to
ensure maximum publicity of our efforts. That we have been doing. We have done
about three press conferences, we have addressed lawyers’ gatherings, and we
have been doing what we called Walk4Change at first, which has now become March4Change.
On our campaigns we have distributed thousands of leaflets to members of the
public in the natural habitat of streets, markets, shops, motor parks, homes,
fields, yards, etc and in the process walking several kilometers. Thus we bring
the gown to the town so to say, we bring our intellect to the grassroots and
our people do give us respect saying “for lawyers to be doing this, to be out
on the streets, they must know what they are doing”. We have campaigned in
Lagos, Ibadan, Oshogbo, Ilorin, Abeokuta, Abuja and Ikorodu and we are still
going to many other places in South West Nigeria. There is no place we have
been that we met hostile reception. Generally, our message has been well
received by people although there are some reservations on the part of a few. See; http://www.lawyers4change.blogspot.com
SQUIB: WHAT CHALLENGES HAS
LAWYERS4CHANGE AS A GROUP ENCOUNTERD SO FAR?
OGUNLANA: As a group, the first challenge is the challenge of
suspicion of our motive. Our critics claim without any proof that L4C was
formed for pecuniary gains. They say, “you cannot be so organized and active except
that politicians have given you a lot of money”. You know in this country, our
successive rulers have corrupted the psyche of our people so badly, they don’t
believe again that somebody can do something noble or patriotic without expecting
a gain. When we go out canvassing and are distributing our pamphlets, you hear some
people say “add money to the paper, after all you have been well paid to do
this.”
Another
challenge is the claim that we are working for the APC while masquerading as
neutrals. They say our nomenclature tallies with the APCS’s slogan of “change” and
so therefore we must be APC funded but this is not true. We are not members of
the APC. I am the coordinator of L4C but I am not a member of the APC, likewise
so many other members of L4C. I see propaganda at work but we are not deterred.
Another challenge, and this is funny is the claim that L4C dragging the Nigerian
Bar Association into partisan politics. How that is possible am yet to
understand. The NBA is the umbrella body for all lawyers at the professional
level. L4C is just a group with particular political orientation and beliefs
and membership is free for those who share its beliefs. The focus and agenda of
the two groups are clearly different. Instead of raising this type of curious
allegations against us our friends who do not believe in our political agenda
should go ahead and form their own groupings. For example they can set up
'Lawyers4Continuity' or 'Lawyers4Peace&Continuity' or even 'Lawyers4Nothing!'
SQUIB: HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO INTEREST
LAWYERS IN JOINING YOUR GROUP GIVEN THE FACT THAT LAWYERS ARE KNOWN ELITES AND SOPHISTICATES
AND MAY NOT BE INTERESTED IN ACTIVISIM?
OGUNLANA: What we have done is to provide leadership to our
colleagues, to galvanize them to action. You cannot force a lawyer to do
anything. Lawyers are perhaps the most difficult people in the world over to force
to do anything. We first spoke to them about our ideas and programmes and they were
persuaded. Our members have been working ardently with us showing great
commitment. They are learning that there is much joy and sense of fulfillment
in been interested in lawful efforts to make Nigeria a better place. At any
rate it is the interest of legal practitioners as a class of professionals to
ensure that democracy does not fail in Nigeria.
SQUIB: HOW ARE THE ACTIVITIES OF THE GROUP
BEING FINANCED?
OGUNLANA: It is financed by donations, from people of goodwill. Some
of them are not members of Lawyers4Change but they are lawyers. They give their
widows mite and we have been carrying on with the little we have because our
passion to succeed is so hot.
SQUIB: SIR, I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW THE
MEMBERSHIP STRENGTH OF LAWYERS4CHANGE?
OGUNLANA: Let’s say about three hundred lawyers.
SQUIB: SIR, AFTER THE 2015 ELECTION WHAT
NEXT FOR LAWYERS4CHANGE?
OGUNLANA: We shall turn into a watchdog, of our elected
officials and their activities in government
